Caleb Goellner wrote:Just a few minutes after 4 p.m. a thin man in an orange shirt and baseball cap wandered into a room of roughly 50 fans. Panning from one side of the room to the other on his way to the panel stage, he asked "Are you all here to see me?

The man was James O'Barr, the 49-year-old creator of "The Crow," a black and white comic book series originally published in 1989, followed by a film starring the late Brandon Lee in 1994. Despite numerous sequels and a television series adapted from the film, the franchise has been surrounded by as much tragedy as success, with the comic book originally created by O'Barr to deal with the loss of his fiancé who was killed by a drunk driver, and Brandon Lee dying in a bizarre shooting accident while filming "The Crow."

The panel, moderated by Wizard's Stephen Wettstein, focused on O'Barr's career in comics and the life experiences that shaped his work, which include several years in the military and many decades working on cars.

Anyway, I met a guy there who manages some of Dave Sim's business dealings. Now, I haven't read CEREBUS. But I do know of the controversy surrounding the man. It was interesting having a discussion with someone that knows him personally. I asked him, at one point, if he regretted the stuff he said and his answer was: "Absolutely. But he will never admit that because he is too hard headed. To him, he already went over that cliff so there is no turning back."

He says that man is extremely friendly and generous. I didn't expect him to say anything to the contrary. But it was still a fairly engaging discussion of a complicated man.

I'm a huge Cerebus fan (I haven't started reading Glamourpuss yet, but I've got 'em all so far) and Dave Sim is definitely one dude I'd like to meet... he's probably schizo as he's said before, but he's also very intelligent and is responsible for groundbreaking comics work.

When did John Romita, Jr., forget how to draw? The new Marvel Previews features two books for which he drew the covers - Doomwar #2 and Incredible Hulk #608 (click to enlarge). Hulk is almost acceptable but for the badly out-of-proportion Wolverine. It's far too sketchy for my liking, but it's competent. Doomwar looks like something he would sketch in ten minutes at a convention as he chatted with a fan. It's downright amateurish. While I've never been a big JRJR fan, I at least found his work professional in the past. This is not professional.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

Agreed, Pacino.He's always been one of my favorite guys in the business, but lately he's just been getting sloppy.There's barely anything resembling composition or perspective, and the water effects look like they were done by a toddler compared to his previous work.I really hope he gets out of this slump soon.

As we've both mentioned, Millar thinks everything he says is clever. That allows him to shove (fake or real) racism in his readers' faces and write it all off as a goof when confronted. "I'm not racist; I'm writing racist characters. But they're not really racist, because so much crime is committed by minorities. Besides, it's all for a laugh." I can imagine that coming out of his mouth.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

Ok, so apparently Marvel is ushering in the "Heroic Age" after this latest crossover: Siege. However, in getting there they have crossed a line so graphic I almost couldn't believe it was in a mainstream comic.

Beware, SPOILERS for Siege #2 and also be warned that the image is quite gruesome. Belongs in a Warren Ellis AVATAR offering, not a MARVEL comic.

I would have sworn there was an original art thread here somewhere, but a search of the Comic Book pages didn't turn it up. Guess I'll post in random.

Does anyone collect original art or con sketches or commissioned art? I am interested in getting a nice drawing from a once-popular artist who is charging $500 for penciled and inked pages featuring up to three characters. Beyond that, it's negotiable. I've been out of things in this area for a while, but that seems like a pretty high price for someone who doesn't work much in comics these days. Simply put, I don't have $500-$1000 dollars to blow on a piece by this guy, even if it is 11x17". Maybe I should stick to a single-character page for $250. *sigh*

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

Many of those are covers from SF digests and books published in the '60s and '70s. I remember seeing some of them when I was young, or in used book stores later in my life. John Berkey did a great deal of SF work before he died some years back.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

So, you've always wanted to learn how to build an atomic bomb? You're in luck: Jim Ottaviani is not only a comics writer...he also has a master's degree in nuclear engineering! But even though it's not a complete do-it-yourself manual (assembly required, and plutonium is definitely NOT included), Fallout will bring you up to speed on the science and politics of the first nuclear gadgets.

On a more serious note, like the other books by G.T. Labs, the focus of Fallout is on the scientists themselves -- in particular J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard. Their stories, starting in pre-WWII Europe and continuing through to the height of the Cold War, offer a cautionary tale about the uneasy alliance between the military, the government, and the beginnings of "big science."

I wonder if anyone can help me find a Superman comic, would have been from around the mid 90's. An Elseworld story I think, it's set in the future with Superman heavily weakened and the Sun somehow obscured from earth, Supes is very old with a long flowing white beard and hair. He's in Gotham and eventually has to use a gigantic gun left in the old Batcave. That's all I remember, ring any bells?

Elitism is positing that your taste is equivalent to quality, you hate "Hamlet" does it make it "bad"? If you think so, you're one elite motherfucker.

TonyWilson wrote:I wonder if anyone can help me find a Superman comic, would have been from around the mid 90's. An Elseworld story I think, it's set in the future with Superman heavily weakened and the Sun somehow obscured from earth, Supes is very old with a long flowing white beard and hair. He's in Gotham and eventually has to use a gigantic gun left in the old Batcave. That's all I remember, ring any bells?

It sounds familiar, but don't know precisely. I remember a story where after a nuclear holocaust the only person left on Earth is a de-powered Superman. Might be the same thing?